


Neighborly Concern

by StrawberryLane



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Assumed Relationship, Assumptions, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Lambrick only wants to help, Misunderstandings, One-Sided Relationship, POV Outsider, Pining, pov pastor Lambrick, that's what he tells himself anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 21:35:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11517951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryLane/pseuds/StrawberryLane
Summary: It didn't take long for Pastor Lambrick to be informed of the absolute worst news he could ever have received – the man paying visits to Mrs Barlow was perhaps the most wicked pirate captain to ever sail the seven seas; Captain Flint.





	Neighborly Concern

**Author's Note:**

> Pirates have taken over my life. 
> 
> I tagged implied/referenced domestic abuse as a tag not because it's implied very much (only one sentence really) but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Pastor Lambrick doesn’t view himself as a particularly nosy person: he cares about the people in his parish and their well-being, but he never lets it go beyond casual inquires. It wouldn't be proper, he thought when he arrived in Nassau in June 1714, to show more interest in someone and not enough in someone else. No, casual but still friendly was the best way to go.

His resolution to be proper dismantled entirely the moment he met Mrs Barlow.

Mrs Barlow, this mystery of a woman who had him snared entirely in the matter of weeks. She was enchanting, dragging him deeper and deeper into his own private version of hell, as it were. He couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep. His entire being was consumed by thoughts of her.

Mrs Barlow was part of his parish, officially speaking, but she rarely attended his church, not even during Easter. When he’d inquired as to why, on his first ever visit, she’d just smiled and changed the subject. But Mrs Barlow not attending his sermons was not what troubled him most – surely, he would find a way to pursue her to do so one day. No, what troubled Pastor Lambrick the most was the man who paid Mrs Barlow irregular visits, often arriving in the middle of the night, hidden by darkness.

Only, the man hadn't counted on the fact that pastor Lambrick's parish was full of God fearing people who'd fall over themselves to do the Pastor's bidding, simply because they thought it would put them in a good light where God himself was concerned. Pastor Lambrick's circle of nosy housewives willing to spy on their allusive neighbor was growing very nicely, indeed.

It didn't take long for Pastor Lambrick to be informed of the absolute worst news he could ever have received – the man paying visits to Mrs Barlow was perhaps the most wicked pirate captain to ever sail the seven seas; Captain Flint.

Captain Flint, Pastor Lambrick quickly learned, was not a man you wanted to cross. You only needed to spend an hour at Eleanor Guthrie's Tavern in the town to learn that. Drunken men talked loudly about the latest atrocious crimes the captain had committed, all while sounding as if it was perfectly normal to talk of a man murdering someone else in cold blood. Apparently the victim’s face hadn't been recognizable when Captain Flint was done with him.

Of course Lambrick becomes concerned. Why should he not, he argues with himself. Miranda Barlow is a gorgeous woman, kind and clever beyond words. How she became entangled with Captain Flint is simply something Lambrick will never come to understand. A woman like that, falling in love with a monster of a man? Surely it's not possible, No, it must be something else.

Mrs Barlow, he reasons, has clearly been married once. Her husband is nowhere to be found. Could Flint have come across the couple during one of his raids and decided he liked the look of the woman, so much he slayed her husband and brought Mrs Barlow back to Nassau with him? Essentially keeping her prisoner here, on this island. Well, it's as possible as any of his theories, Lambrick muses. Mrs Barlow, mystery that she is, refuses to give a clear answer to his inquires.

Her silence only makes Lambrick even more determined to help her escape the monster who keeps her exiled from proper society. He only wants to help.

That, he tells himself, is the only reason he goes to Mrs Barlow's house late one night, much later than is socially acceptable. Governor Guthrie has left her house and Lambrick can't stomach the thought of Miranda having to face Captain Flint over the betrayal. Surely, it'll lead to her dead on the floor in her empty house, body bruised and broken beyond repair.

Lambrick only wishes to help her, to warn her. That’s what he tells himself as the yellow light from her window comes into his line of sight.

He only wants to help, nothing more.

 


End file.
